Better Option
by AdmHawthorne
Summary: One shot. Emma and Regina in the dinner talking about Walsh. It's supposed to be funny and a little Swan Queen-ish. Followup story is 'Wickedly Evil Fire Starter.'


**Characters aren't mine. They belong to ABC, Disney, and other assorted entities of importance. I gain nothing from writing these stories but the fun of doing it. Please don't sue me.**

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"You were going to get married?" Regina crossed her arms and stared down the woman sitting across from her.

Emma shifted uncomfortably in the diner's bench, scrunching her face up. "Well, not anymore."

The brunette titled her head back slightly, looking down her nose at the younger woman. "To a man named Walsh?"

The former sheriff winced. "No, not exactly."

"What do you mean, 'Not exactly," Regina asked as she leveled her gaze at the other woman. "Are you calling our son a liar?"

"No," Emma drew the one syllable word out while she considered her options. "No." She shook her head in the negative, lowering her eyes to stare down into her half empty cup of coffee. "He just doesn't know the whole truth." She winced again at the snort of irritation that issued forth from the other side of the booth.

"And that would be what, exactly?"

Letting out a long sigh, the blonde forced herself to meet the mayor's hardened expression. "Look, Regina, in case you've missed Hook's not-so-subtle jabs about it, Walsh turned out to be a flying monkey."

The older woman's eyes widened perceptibly, and her voice went up a tick. "A what?"

Emma ground her teeth, clearly pained to have to repeat herself. "A flying monkey."

A devilish smirk started to spread across the darker woman's face. "Really?"

"Yes, really, and, before _you _start in with the monkey jokes, I just want to make one thing perfectly clear," the younger woman said as she leaned across the table, lowering her voice to make sure no one else could hear her. "I _did not_ sleep with him."

The glint in Regina's eye and the smirk now firmly planted on her lips was all Emma needed to know something incredibly sassy was about to come her way. She settled back into her side of the booth and braced herself, awaiting her fate.

The brunette carefully picked up her cup of coffee and took a contemplative sip, all the while looking at Emma as if she were thoroughly considering her options as to what snide remark to make first. When she set her cup down again, she prolonged the younger woman's discomfort by continuing the already too long uncomfortable silence.

Finally, Regina spoke in a calm, serious tone. "Why?"

"What?" Of all the things Emma was expecting or preparing for, that question was not one of them.

"Why didn't you sleep with him? Henry seemed to think you held this Walsh in high regard, I can tell by the lost puppy dog look in your eyes when you talk about him that you had some feelings for him, and you're not known for your proclivity towards abstinence, so why didn't you sleep with him?"

Emma balked. "You know, not that it's any of your business, Regina, but, despite what you may think about me and my parenting skills, I would never sleep with a man I wasn't at least living with while Henry was in the house, and I don't like letting Henry sleep over at his friends' places. There's just something about letting him out of my sight for that long that doesn't agree with me." She frowned, the thought occurring to her in retrospect that those emotions were probably residually left over from their escapades in Neverland. "Which, by the way, is more than I can say for you. You and Graham were going at it with Henry just down the hallway, _and then_ you made Graham leave out your bedroom window like some kind of cat burglar, which, I guess… in a way, he sort of was." She smirked at her own little dirty joke.

Regina regarded the blonde for a second before replying. "That was a different scenario. Apples to oranges, Miss Swan. I made sure Henry never knew about those encounters, and, besides, it's not as though I had many options in this…"

"Oh please, spare me." Emma waved her hand dismissively. "You can't judge me for supposedly being promiscuous and, in the same breath, justify you doing it yourself. Pot, kettle, black, Regina."

"Fine." Regina pursed her lips and gave a dismissive shrug. "It's old news anyway. It's not as though either of us have any of those worries any longer."

"Nope," Emma agreed with roll of her eyes.

They sat in silence of a time, both lost in their thoughts of times past. Eventually, Regina broke the silence, voice softer than normal. "I'm glad you didn't."

Emma glanced up from her empty cup with a puzzled look on her face. "Didn't what?"

"Marry the flying monkey." Regina grinned from behind her coffee mug, commenting nonchalantly, "I don't think Mary Margaret and David could have handled little monkey grandchildren, although watching Mary Margaret trying to chase one of them down is almost worth the…"

"No." Emma held her hand up. "It _is not_ worth whatever you're about to say. If you want to torture Mary Margaret, remind her of two days ago when that monkey decided to roost in the tree by the apartment."

Regina wrinkled her nose in disgust. "That reminds me. I need to hire Marco to build a carport at my house."

"You can't just magic one up?"

"I suppose I could, but Marco seems to need the business, and I… what? Why are you looking at me like that?" The brunette scowled at the younger woman, who was giving her a lopsided grin approaching approval.

"You're willing to hire Marco to build something that'll take him about a week instead of instantly creating it with magic because you know he needs that work. That's… that's really considerate, Regina."

"Please," the older woman grumbled, glancing away from the look still beaming from the blonde. "I just want to put in measures to protect my car from anything dropping from any of your potential suitors."

Emma let out a loud sigh. "And here I thought we were having a moment."

"We are having coffee and waiting for David to bring Henry back from the clothing store," Regina pointedly reminded.

Emma shook her head lightly, smirking at the defensiveness coming from the other woman. "You know," she said as she waved down Ruby for a refill, "I'm glad I didn't either."

Regina turned her annoyed expression back to the blonde. "Didn't what?"

"Marry the monkey man," Emma said with a shrug. She waited until Ruby had finished filling both mugs before she finished her thought. "If I had, I'd have missed out on this incredibly exciting conversation."

"I always knew you liked my company, Miss Swan." Regina raised an eyebrow as she took a sip of her coffee.

"Hmmm," the younger woman shrugged again. "You're smarter than Neal, smoother than Hook, and more attractive that Walsh. All things considered, I could probably do worse than keeping company with you."

Regina rolled her eyes. "Minus the killing hundreds, enslaving as many, and cursing an entire realm to a small town in southern Maine?"

"Meh," Emma smiled warmly at the older woman, "we all have a past."

"Says the woman who nearly married a flying monkey."

Emma let out another sigh. "You know, they have a tail. That could have been some interesting and kinky…"

Regina held a hand up, closing her eyes against the mental picture being drawn for her. "I don't really want to hear about your kinks, Miss Swan."

"Well then, stop reminding me that I nearly married a flying monkey, and I'll stop giving you mental pictures that make you wish there was such a thing as mind bleach."

The brunette huffed. "Fine."

Emma nodded approvingly. "Truce?"

"Yes, I suppose."

"Good, and, when this is all over," Emma said, a playful glint in her own eyes now, "you owe me."

"For what?" Regina scoffed, clearly offended at the very thought.

"For helping to save your ass again." The blonde cocked an eyebrow. "You owe me dinner."

"What? I do not…"

"Someplace nice."

"…owe you a single, solitary…"

"Someplace I can dress nicely."

"…thing, and if you think I'm going to…"

"And maybe a movie or a trip to the theater or something."

"…take you out just because you decided to come back here to…"

"And we'll find a babysitter for Henry, maybe Ruby."

"…save the day, as you always seem to foolishly do, just because you're the…"

"I say we go out someplace in New York. They have a lot of great food places, and we can spend the night at my apartment."

"…daughter of Snow White and Prince Char… Wait, what did you just say?"

"I said," Emma grinned mischievously, "that after we went out we could spend the night at my place. There's no reason to rent a hotel room since my apartment is right there, and there's no way we're going to want to drive all the way back here after dinner and a show in New York."

Regina blinked a few times, processing. "Are you asking me out on a date?"

"Well, that depends." The blonde playfully narrowed her eyes.

"On?" The older woman was clearly suspicious.

"How you feel about bananas." Regina rolled her eyes but she laughed, and Emma chuckled. "Well?"

"I'm not fond of them, actually," the brunette admitted with a small smile playing at the corners of her mouth. "As you're no doubt aware, I prefer apples."

Emma nodded decisively in the affirmative. "Okay, then, you're perfect."

Regina raised her eyes brows, a smirk coming back to her face. "Am I?"

"Well," the blonde turned her head to see David enter the diner with Henry, "I'd say dating another human being is a step up from a flying monkey, so yeah."

"Always the charmer, Miss Swan," Regina deadpanned, her eyes trained on Henry's approach.

"Runs in the blood," Emma shot back just before the two men came into earshot and the conversation turned to clothes, hiking, and other activities that catch a young boy's eye.

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**Thanks for reading. Reviews are appreciated.**


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